Take It Easy
by NonsensicalCheshire
Summary: There they were, stuck in the middle of the lake, because they were both far to stubborn to admit they did not know what they were doing.


A/N: I wanted to write cute Gruvia.

. . . . . . . .

"Okay, take it easy there." Gray pushed the paddle in the clear water. Juvia, wearing a red tank top and black pants, looked at her boyfriend skeptically as she pushed her paddle in the water as well.

"Juvia is taking it easy," she responded. "She thinks that Gray needs to 'take it easy.'"

"What are you talking about, I'm totally taking it easy," he growled as he roughly put the paddle to the canoe back in the water, splashing them both with cold water. Juvia blinked, unimpressed, as the water ran off her forehead and into her eyes. She lifted an eyebrow and gave a smirk. Funny. She seemed to have become a bit more, well, _sassy_, since they got together. The water wizard never would have lifted her eyebrows like that before they were an item. He gave her a sheepish smile, running a hand through his hair to dispel the liquid there. "Sorry."

She smiled and gave a teasing "humph!" and continued to paddle. After a minute or two of both of them doing this, she stopped. "Gray?"

"Yeah?"

"I think we're going in circles."

"Are we?" He looked around as they worked their arms. Oh. Oh, yes, they were going in circles. "Um, stupid mistake, I guess. I haven't done this in a while, so…"

And by a while, he meant never. Gray was confident that Juvia knew how to, but now he was starting to doubt that.

He turned back to his girlfriend, who had abandoned her paddle and was dipping her finger in the water and making patterns, a mixture of simple movement and her magic. She looked joyful and entranced. Gray sat for a moment, staring at her. Starting, she looked up, propped herself up on the rim of the canoe, and squinted at the shore of the lake where a good deal of the guild was sitting and having fun.

Juvia held a hand up to her forehead and squinted harder. "Juvia thinks that someone on the shore is trying to tell her something…"

. . . . . . . .

"JUVIA!" Lucy waved her arms around, her chest flouncing around at the movement, barely contained by her usual swimsuit. "YOU'RE PADDLING WRONG, DID YOU KNOW THAT?!"

"Leave her be, Lucy," came a voice from behind. Lucy turned to see an amused Evergreen, wearing sunglasses (to protect from more than the glare; so that she wouldn't turn her guild mates into stone with a single look), a black tank top, and white jeans, her green jacket tied around her waist. The stunning brunette put a hand up to her cheek and giggled. "The two of them are stranded in the middle of the lake. Alone. It's cute!"

"How is being stranded cute?" Lucy demanded, then continued to wave her arms.

"… I actually don't know, but leave them be on their date~"

"Is being stranded a date?"

"Why do you ask difficult questions?"

. . . . . . . .

"Odd," Juvia mumbled. "Whoever it was trying to get Juvia's attention stopped." She picked up her oar and continued to paddle.

"Okay." Gray started again too.

"…"

Both of them stayed quite. They still went in circles. Juvia looked at him from the corner of her navy blue eyes, and they both stared at each other like that.

"Do you actually know how to-"

"No."

Juvia sat there, holding her paddle uselessly. "Well okay then. What do we do now?"

Gray put his rowing device down in the canoe and leaned back, rocking the canoe slightly. "You could always make some waves to push us back in."

"Juvia wants to stay out here with Gray. She doesn't want to go back to the shore yet."

"Okay." So the two sit there, bobbing in the water, the soft waves rocking them gently. Gray drummed his fingers against the side of the wooden boat. Boring. Boring boring boring. "Sure you don't want to go back to shore?"

"Would Gray like that?"

"I've got an idea." Juvia turned to him, an eyebrow raised. He held up a finger in her face and she blinked back confused. He put his hand down to the water; her eyes followed. "Ice Make: Floor." A fifteen foot radius around their canoe froze into a perfectly flat sheet of ice. He stood, the canoe remaining steady in its place snuggled among the ice. "If neither of us can row a canoe to save our lives, then how about we skate?"

A smile spread across Juvia Lockser's pale face. She tentatively reached out her hand, which he reached out and grabbed, then pulled her out of the boat and onto the frozen lake. Immediately she, not used to the ice, being a rain person herself, began to slide around, so he grabbed her other hand and they stood there, him expertly keeping his footing and her skidding and trying to regain balance as she kicked off her shoes.

"Ready?" he asked, smiling slightly at the blunette.

"No."

"Too bad." And he skid backward, dragging her along with him as she gave a shriek that dissolved into a laugh as they skated along the ice, him sometimes swinging her around in a circle, or picking her up before she fell. A couple of times her balance was so bad that they collapsed in a heap. The two sat there on the ice, laughing, the canoe forgotten.

. . . . . . . .

"Oh look." Lucy put down her drink to look out at the lake where the happy couple was skating around and falling all over each other. "I guess they gave up on canoeing."

Evergreen, settled next to Fried and Laxus with Bickslow resting his head on her lap while he dozed, sat on the grass away from the shore, but looked up and lifted her dark glasses just barely to get a better look. "Ice skating? Is that why the air got cold a few minutes ago?"

Natsu stomped his foot on the rocky sand of the shore. "WHY DOES ICE-PANTS GET TO HAVE ALL THE FUN?!"

Lucy looked at him, unamused, from her position next to Erza. "You'd probably get motion-sick ice skating."

The Dragon Slayer opened his mouth to protest, then clearly thought better of it, because he shut his mouth and turned, pouty. Evergreen picked up her drink and smiled. "Told you it would turn out cute if the two were left to their own devices."

"Ice skating in manly!" (Guess who said this.)

"Because I don't know what that means, I've elected to ignore it."


End file.
